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Oil And Gas Companies Shirking Responsibility For $123 Billion In Cleanup Costs: Report
(www.readthemaple.com)
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this post was submitted on 02 Aug 2023
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It's not really a free market if they're allowed to damage others' property with impunity.
It is free market since those others are technically able to sue the company for compensation...presuming that they can afford to hire a lawyer for the five years it takes to settle the lawsuit because the company's going to use every delay tactic and counter-lawsuit they can think of to just wait out the other guy.
Unless there is meaningful redress of grievous acts that fall outside the bounds of voluntary commerce, such as property damage, it's still not a free market.
It's a free market because the guy with a bigger wallet gets to do whatever he wants until his wallet isn't the biggest anymore.
That's not what “free market” means. It's not a synonym for “anarchy”. Crime is still punished in a free-market system.
I never stated that any of this explicitly has to bypass the laws. In fact, the fact that they can be sued means specifically that they're following the law. And that is exactly what is going on with these companies we've been talking about. Polluting the environment is well within the law, or else they wouldn't be getting away with it, and because they are able to afford to lobby the government so that they don't have to be responsible for it, that it's the public that has to pay for the cleanup, rather than those who are responsible for the pollution in the first place.
You also said that suing someone and prevailing is impossible if you aren't richer than them. That is not meaningful redress. And there's no reason why a free-market system couldn't consider pollution a grievous act deserving redress.
Bribing the government is not part of a free-market system, either.
By law, lobbying isn't bribing. Or else you wouldn't see so much of it so blatantly in the States.
It happens in every government, here as well. Just not as obvious.
And while yes, theoretically these sorts of issues can be redressed in a completely free-market system, the degree the stars need to align for such a thing to happen, you might as well hope that everybody who makes more than $1000 a year in North Korea suddenly have a heart attack on the same day and the rest of the country come together and make peace with their southern neighbours.
Market forces always drive towards whatever is cheapest and pushes for the greatest profits, and a billionaire is going to be far likely to get their way than a few thousand people who combined still make less than 10% of that one guy. It takes a colossal combined effort to move a massive mountain of cash.
I'm not talking about here. I'm talking about a hypothetical country with a free market.
You're right that no such country exists in real life, but then you blame the nonexistent free market for our problems, which makes no sense. How can you blame our problems on something that doesn't exist?
That is certainly true, and that's why we have antitrust law (pity it's not enforced), but keep in mind that the rich quite often use violence to get their way, not just money. Elon Musk, for example, inherited his wealth from his father, and his father got his wealth by enslaving people.
True free markets don't exist here, or almost anywhere in the world (thankfully). But that doesn't mean that free market tendencies don't happen. Lots of companies take advantage of the countless loopholes and blind spots in the regulations that exist, and in those places act like a free market.
Two big examples are lobbying and lawsuits. Both are things that give you massive advantages just by having a lot of money to push around, and both that tend to be pretty consequence free if done right.
I don't deny that the rich use blatantly illegal methods as well. You'd be amazed at how much sexual violence is committed in the entertainment industries. Lots of powerful people in that industry do that sort of stuff so they have blackmail material on up and coming talent in case they try to report on the stuff they witness. It's one of the reasons why so many of them suffer from mental issues.
Lobbying and lawsuits both involve government intervention in business affairs. That's the opposite of a free market.